The government hopes to revive its beleaguered stock market policing efforts by adding human and financial resources to the RCMP’s Integrated Market Enforcement Teams, and by expanding the unit’s mandate.

The RCMP’s market enforcement unit was created with great fanfare in 2003, but it has so far proven short on results. In the budget Monday, the government announced several measures designed to improve the return on its investment in the IMETs.

It will appoint a “senior expert advisor” to the RCMP who will be charged with developing and implementing a plan to improve the team’s effectiveness. Once that plan is in place, it will add another $10 million to IMETs’ $30-million annual budget to help carry it out.

Additionally, Ottawa indicates that it plans to expand the IMETs’ mandate to include cases involving investment funds, and other sorts of cases that may have “regional significance” that could threaten investor confidence or economic stability. It is currently restricted to cases involving large publicly listed issuers and cases of national significance.

A finance official says there is a feeling that there have been cases where there should have been a role for IMETs, but that the unit was constrained from getting involved by its initial mandate.

The “senior expert advisor” has yet to be named, although the Finance official said that the appointment is expected soon. The person primarily will have an organizational and human resources role — attracting well-qualified officers and professionals to the IMETs unit, strengthening the central co-ordination of the various local offices to make better use of their resources, and improving co-ordination with the securities regulators and Crown prosecutors.

Once that plan is in place, the additional funding will be provided. It is budgeted for fiscal 2009, giving the new administrator more or less a year to put it together.

It remains to be seen if this significant funding increase will be enough to revive the IMETs’ effort. It has also been suggested that what the force really needs to help speed its efforts is greater investigative powers — but the Finance official indicates that this is not currently under consideration.